MEGAN DAVIS: Hello Gopher fans. It’s Megan Davis.
SAMANTHA ROERING: Samantha Roering.
DAVIS: With the Minnesota Daily, and you’re listening to The Gold Standard, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota sports.
Welcome back. We have more hockey to talk about, as playoffs are approaching. Would you call gold medal game playoffs ending?
ROERING: Yeah, I feel like.
DAVIS: Do we wanna start with women’s hockey and their blunder?
ROERING: Yes. So whilst Abbey Murphy was winning gold with team USA. The Gopher women’s hockey team had a weekend against UMD. UMD went into the weekend ranked number 10 on the polls, and there was kind of some questions about is UMD even gonna make the national tournament? Like they’re hanging on by a thread.
They did what they needed to do. UMD swept the Gophers, took them to overtime both games, so at least the Gophers like got points, but like it didn’t really matter because their conference standing had already been decided.
So not a great weekend for them, but I mean, the goal tending looked solid. Hannah Clark and Layla Hemp, they look reliable, dependable. Their scoring just looked kind of out of it.
DAVIS: Okay, so obviously Abbey Murphy will be coming back. Do you think like morale will be high enough that she’s back? That like maybe everyone just like needed the extra energy?
I know they already got a few Olympians back, so you would think that that might help, or do you think maybe they relax because they’re like, “Oh, some Olympians are back. We don’t have to compete as hard.”
ROERING: Yeah, I think they probably overlooked UMD a little bit and was like, “Oh, we don’t have to try as hard.” It’s, it’s the last regular season game. We don’t really care about this like. It didn’t have many implications for them except losing did drop their MPI. They were at three.
Now they’re at four, which is not great for the national tournament seeding because if you are the number four seed, if you make it to the like final four, you play the number one seed, which very likely gonna be Wisconsin versus if you’re the number three, you play the number two. And I’d take the Ohio matchup over the Wisconsin matchup any day.
DAVIS: Yeah.
ROERING: But. I mean it losing did have consequences, but I think going into it, they were like, “OK, well we’re gonna make the national tournament. We’re gonna get Abbey Murphy back. We don’t really care.” That’s kind of the vibe that I got.
DAVIS: Mm-hmm.
ROERING: They wanna win the national championship. They don’t really care about UMD.
DAVIS: Did you hear from Frost postgame and what he kinda had to say about the performance?
ROERING: He did have some quotes after the game and he basically said that, at least the second game, he liked the way they played. Just obviously not the final score. I feel like coaches are all the time, they’re like, “Yeah, well, you know, we played good but we didn’t win.”
DAVIS: Yeah. But I mean they’ll, they’ll start their playoffs against St. Cloud, possible two game series hopefully. Hopefully they don’t need that third game and they do get home ice advantage. So all Gopher fans can come and scream that Abbey Murphy is back.
ROERING: Yeah. Minnesota has beat St. Cloud all of the games this year. They had one of their more recent games against them where they had seven goals in one period against St. Cloud. So, Gophers have definitely been the better team throughout the year.
DAVIS: Okay.
ROERING: But I definitely think you can’t overlook St. Cloud’s goal tending. Amelia Carrico, she was one of Finland’s goaltenders who went with to the Olympics, but I don’t believe she started the game. I know she’s kind of been battling some injuries throughout the year, but she’s really good.
And then their other goaltender, Jojo Chobak. She’s a senior. She’s pretty solid. So goal tending for St. Cloud is definitely a strength. But I think for Minnesota, if they can get their offense going, that should hopefully help them. And they have probably the, the major advantage with their forwards and defenders.
DAVIS: The USA women’s hockey obviously took gold over Canada. How many people were surprised? I would say like a competitive game, but we talked about it so much that it was like, “Oh, this is, I expect nothing less from my glorious women’s hockey team representing these United States.” Anything that you saw in the game that was kind of like surprising?
ROERING: Well, they got off to kind of a rough start. The first period was pretty evenly matched. Then they started the second period on the power play and they gave up a shorthanded goal. And that second period was, was a hard watch. I was like, “Oh wait, are they gonna get it done here?”
And then third period’s going along, there’s like four minutes left and it’s, they’re still losing one-nothing. They pull their goaltender, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is gonna go down as like the biggest choke job in history,” because like, you know, sure they’ve won the last seven matchups. But that doesn’t, that doesn’t matter.
DAVIS: That means nothing. That means nothing.
ROERING: Right. And then Hilary Knight gets the, the game tying one, which put her the most Olympic goals by a U.S. hockey player. So that was really cool. And then they go to OT. I’m like holding my breath because I’m like, it could go either way.
And I mean, Murphy looked good defensively. She had a really nice play to stop Daryl Watts. And then they bring it back the other way and Megan Keller gets it off of a feed from former Gopher Taylor Heise.
DAVIS: And then men’s hockey took home first gold since 1980. It was a Miracle on Ice. I definitely, in previous podcasts, made fun of the men’s hockey team saying that they were trying to recreate the Miracle on Ice team. And I’m like, I don’t know if you guys can do it. And they did it.
I mean, beat Canada, men took gold. However, now it’s time to get a little controversial cause they won. Everyone was ecstatic. Like a couple different people were like, they opened the bars at 6:00 a.m. so people could start drinking and watching the game, which love, love the spirit.
Good stuff. Yeah. But then, then they won and it was like, oh my God, like best hockey game in a really long time, like, this was a fantastic, because it was the last event of the Olympics, so a lot of people were like, this is a fantastic way to end the Olympics. Great way to wrap it all up. Everyone’s so excited.
Kash Patel is there, the head of the FBI, and my first question was why? I know J.D. Vance was in Milan earlier to watch some of the games and stuff, but like, it’s one thing to like, okay, I’m a representative of the country. I’m gonna go show my support to my country, obviously makes a lot of sense. The celebration, weird.
And then like, just kind of the amount of players endorsing it and partying with him was shocking. I know hockey is statistically the most conservative sport, but it’s just kind of not what I was expecting. What rubbed me the wrong way is a phone call that went viral of Trump saying, “Should we invite the women’s team who also won gold earlier?”
And then they all laughed. And that doesn’t make sense to me because those are also Americans who also pulled off an incredible feat and should be respected just as much as the men’s hockey players, even though they have been routinely disrespected.
And that was, I didn’t, I didn’t enjoy that, especially because if you know anything about the Hughes brothers, their mother, Ellen Hughes was huge for women’s hockey back in the day and is a huge reason that they are in hockey today. So to kind of have that dismissive attitude towards women was, I can’t say it made me excited to celebrate this team.
ROERING: I would agree with that. And it just makes me think of all the, the women’s players on their gold medal team who worked really hard to get that medal and now they’re going on social media and they’re seeing their work get discredited. I mean, a couple of players have like liked posts on Instagram that are basically like, “Oh, this is why like supporting women’s sports is important.”
DAVIS: Yeah.
ROERING: Because otherwise this narrative goes around. So some of the women’s hockey players have been like liking posts and stuff, so you can see that they know that this is going around.
DAVIS: Oh yeah. A lot of the men’s players were asked earlier in the competition like, “Oh, you see how the American women are playing? How do you feel about them?” And some of them gave good responses about like certain players that they’ve, you know, worked with or been around.
I think the Tkachuk Brothers ignored the question about some of their favorite female hockey players, which was kind of a red flag, number one.
ROERING: But also not surprising if they have their own podcast.
DAVIS: Yeah. So it was just kind of like a, there’s supposed to be camaraderie between the two. And obviously I don’t believe it’s the women’s problem. Like it’s like it’s clearly that this animosity towards them is coming from the team that is also representing the same country.
And a lot of these women, since they’re all from like they played in similar colleges, lived in similar states. Like hockey is very concentrated in the parts of America that it is.
And I’m sure a lot of these women watch the NHL can’t say the same other way around, but like just like, you guys are both good at your sport. Why do the unnecessary dig? Because like, who wouldn’t wanna celebrate together?
ROERING: Right. And before all of like their, their after party started for the men, they had asked Jack Hughes and he had basically said one of the first things he thought about after scoring his overtime winner was Megan Keller, who scored the women’s.
And he said that like he saw her in like their cafeteria or something and he went up and gave her a hug.
DAVIS: Yeah.
ROERING: And it’s like if you are showing them support, but then you’re gonna go around and like. Behind their backs on a phone call with the president and do otherwise.
DAVIS: Yeah. Oh yeah. And then the, the multiple phone, we got so many transcripts of phone calls with presidents. Literally, I think I’ve seen about five of them. Of just every single player telling exactly, which I understand that’s a reporter’s job. Of course, you’re gonna ask what they said on the phone call and how they feel about it.
And it, it just kind of shows how isolated the hockey community is. And sometimes there, I think it reminds people who are into hockey that this is still this predominantly hyper masculine, alpha, super conservative, predominantly white sport.
And the players kind of feed into that stereotype and haven’t done a lot to combat it. And then it also sucks because it’s now like instead of celebrating like the success of both of these teams and a feat that America has never accomplished because of the men. We could have had this a lot earlier guys, if you just like pitched in.
Is like instead of celebrating both of these teams we’re now hung up on these like things that they have decided to do after. And I’m sure they will all, because Trump invited them both to The State of The Union address, the news came out two hours ago that the women’s hockey team denied it.
No, I did, I did look up what kind of Trump said. He said, “I would have to invite them both or else I would get impeached.” Which way to throw a backhand compliment in there. That’s always nice to be invited to something and the person who’s inviting you says, I’m kind of just doing it out of obligation.
ROERING: Well, that was the comment that like all the players were laughing about on the phone and it’s like, “OK, this, that just feels weird.”
DAVIS: Once again, like America’s in a very difficult place right now. I would like people to be a little bit more unified. This is not what I was expecting. Yeah. So that, that’s been fun in the hockey world.
Both of the games, like I saw a lot of non hockey fans watching them because they’re like, “Oh wow, this is like super thrilling, like haven’t seen anything like this.” That was cool because it’s like people who aren’t usually into hockey or hockey, doesn’t reach them in wherever they are in the us like tuned into the Olympic game.
And then were treated the great final gold game from both teams and a really competitive one, which really, you know, shows off the sport and hopefully like the fan base grows a little bit. I don’t know. Hopefully now the celebration stuff may have curbed that a little bit, especially for different parts of America. But.
ROERING: It’ll be interesting because the gold medal game for the women was actually, it set a record as the most watched women’s hockey game. So I mean, they have that positive momentum.
DAVIS: Oh yeah.
ROERING: And I feel like a lot of people might kind of rally behind the women being like, “OK, we’re gonna start watching the PWHL now. Yeah, we’re gonna start watching NCAA hockey.”
So I feel like there is the chance that for the women’s game, it could grow because a lot of people are gonna realize, “Wait, you know, there’s really talented players that aren’t getting the credit they deserve.” But I could see the NHL, some issues there.
DAVIS: Yeah, I think with, I think it’s great for the PWHL, mainly because the U.S. team had so many NCAA players. So one, you get the excitement to see where are these women gonna go finish out their hockey career, where are they gonna get drafted?
And then also I know like both NHL and the PWHL have expansions, like expansion is always on the mind. And so hopefully this, at least for the PWHL, like, you know, it helps propel kind of this expansion they’ve been working toward.
Off the ice and into the courts. Now we’re gonna talk about basketball. So we can start with men’s basketball because They had a win over Rutgers. Rutgers not doing great this season though they did have equal records. So I think it’s just like I do have a little bit of Gophers bias because I’ve just been watching way more of their games than Rutgers games.
The Gophers are better because of their ranked wins. Rutgers didn’t have that same kinda luck, and it wasn’t the most interesting game. I mean, the Gophers, they, they were just able to defend well, and Rutgers just couldn’t get, like their shot selection wasn’t great.
And I was actually nervous in the beginning because it was like, okay, the Gophers, your shot selection isn’t great either. We are shooting a lot of threes, but then they kept going in and I’m like, okay, I guess that doesn’t really matter that you’re not driving to the basket.
It was nice because Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, still out with ankle injury. I’m assuming they’ll want him back for their Michigan game. Do I know if they’ll get him back? I’m not sure. But Grayson Grove took over his spot.
The two are different players, definitely. But Grayson Grove, he gave a lot of heart. He was there. He was fighting for the ball. So I, it’s, it’s not the same as having Crocker-Johnson on the court, but he definitely was like, these are the minutes I’m gonna get, I’m gonna go out and give it my all.
He knew where, where his strengths were, and so he was just aggressive out on the court and that was, that was good to see. And then Cade Tyson hit a bunch of threes, the entire team did, but one of their like highest three pointing shooting games in a really long time. I think they’re like hit a total, like 50%, total.
And now they go to Michigan and Ann Arbor to face formerly the number one team, now I believe they’re seeded at number three. Who knows what will happen. I will say the Gophers luck with ranked teams has been very home court dominant, so I don’t know if that same Barn arena luck will be able to strike in Ann Arbor, but we can hope for the best.
ROERING: Michigan is on a different level than some of the other teams.
DAVIS: Yeah.
ROERING: And they, they that they’ve been able to beat. It’s gonna be a hard court to play on. I mean, Michigan fans show up and.
DAVIS: Yeah.
ROERING: I feel like Michigan, Minnesota has kind of become a little bit of a rivalry in recent years.
DAVIS: Mm-hmm. Definitely tough atmosphere, tough crowd, tough team. Who knows? I, I’m not, I’m not going to count this Gophers team out.
Speaking of Michigan, women’s basketball played Michigan State over the weekend, and they unfortunately did lose that one. Michigan State is ranked, I believe they’re number 18 at the time, but despite that loss, the Gophers still moved up in the AP poll.
They’re now number 22 instead of 23. Still moved up to the poll, which is obviously due to their Ohio State win, which was incredibly impressive.
ROERING: I mean, that one was tough. I just feel like when you look at the Michigan State one, I don’t think everyone really stepped up. Like not everyone shots were falling and they couldn’t really recover from that. I mean, Tori McKinney.
DAVIS: I was gonna say.
ROERING: Had 29 points.
DAVIS: 29 points. Oh, she was just on fire. And I know Sophie Hart, she did a, she did a good amount of rebounds, I believe. I think I was just noticeably absent was Grace Grocholski, which is so unlike her.
But I guess like, you know, you’re gonna have one bad game because usually she, you know, leads momentum, leads the scoring for the team and she was kind of notably absent. And I think Tori McKinney stole all of her points.
ROERING: Well, it’s nice to see McKinney get those points.
DAVIS: Oh yeah.
ROERING: I mean, they’ve talked about it before that like. On any night, any given player can be the player that takes charge. And so you really do see that in their games because sometimes it’s, it.
DAVIS: Just happens.
ROERING: Yeah.
DAVIS: So many times they’re gonna end their season, they’ll play Illinois and they’ll be in an away game. And then two days later, they’re in Indianapolis with their Big Ten tournament.
And I will say McKinney was just on fire during the WBIT tournament. So this is what I’m just assuming she’s gearing up, she’s ready to go full playoff mode. I would like to see 29 points out of all of them.
ROERING: Yes, I’m ready for Amaya Battle.
DAVIS: Oh yeah.
ROERING: Her senior season, you know, get that, go out on a good note for her. That’s what I hope is that.
DAVIS: Do it. Do it for the Battle.
ROERING: Yeah. Oh the WNBA just set their CBA deadline. So like.
DAVIS: Oh.
ROERING: The season will be impacted if there’s no deal by March 10. Okay, so this is officially where, like by March 10, if there’s nothing in place, like the season’s not gonna start on time. Potentially.
DAVIS: I mean, I will say most people were predicting this would happen.
ROERING: Right.
DAVIS: Like this was kind of, I don’t think any of the players could be caught off guard for this because they gotta figure something out.
ROERING: I mean, they’re all in Miami right now playing Unrivaled. Like I don’t, I don’t think the players.
DAVIS: Yeah.
ROERING: Could really care less about.
DAVIS: Also they make more in Unrivaled than they do during the WNBA season. And so like, at some point it’s gonna be like, well forget about the WNBA, extend Unrivaled, like. I don’t know how the viewership numbers like compete, but, they’re able to pay the players.
The women are going just as hard as Unrivaled as they would in their regular season. Why, like what are the downsides of abandoning the traditional league? Like besides the name, everything about Unrivaled looks better for the players. And this is what’s about, it’s about the players.
It’s not about the company. Uh, yeah, the, the landscape of women’s basketball looks like it could be shifting. And that’s these women’s off season and they’re electing it to go play more basketball and they still chose, they’re like, “No, I’m gonna spend my off season playing basketball.” Which could you imagine if NBA players did that?
ROERING: They would like.
DAVIS: They’d come back with torn ACLs.
ROERING: Right.
DAVIS: Thank you for listening. This episode is by Megan Davis.
ROERING: Samantha Roering.
DAVIS: And produced by Ceci Heinen. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to send a message to our email inbox at [email protected] with any questions, comments or concerns.
I’m Megan Davis.
ROERING: Samantha Roering.
DAVIS: And this has been The Gold Standard.
